Latest news with #kneereplacement
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Taylor Swift reveals mom Andrea underwent secret surgery five years after brain tumor diagnosis
Taylor Swift shared a rare health update on her beloved mother Andrea Swift while appearing on her boyfriend Travis Kelce 's New Heights podcast this week. After breaking her silence over the news about her father Scott Swift's quintuple bypass surgery this summer earlier in the episode, the superstar, 35, also revealed that her mom quietly underwent knee replacement surgery. 'My dad's like, "New arteries, new me," she said. 'My mom just got a new knee - she's doing great.' She continued: 'She's scampering around — well, not quite at scampering yet — but she's doing great.' Travis added, 'She's up and moving around.' The 14-time Grammy winner, who revealed her new album Life of a Showgirl will come out on October 3, joked that 'this just like the summer' of her 'parental upgrades.' Taylor Swift shared a rare health update on her beloved mother Andrea Swift while appearing on her boyfriend Travis Kelce 's New Heights podcast this week; seen in 2007 'Making sure that they live to be at least 186 years old, because they're two of my best friends and I just adore them,' she gushed. Taylor notably didn't share any updates on her mother's previous cancer diagnosis. It was reported in 2015 that Andrea had been diagnosed with an unspecified cancer, though it later went into remission. But Taylor revealed in a 2019 essay for Elle that her mother's cancer had returned, and in 2020 she said doctors had since discovered that Andrea had developed a brain tumor. Since then, the superstar singer has kept her mother's cancer battle behind the scenes. Although there haven't been additional updates, fans took it to be a positive sign that Andrea was such a regular presence on her daughter's whirlwind Eras Tour. Since then, the superstar singer has kept her mother's cancer battle behind the scenes. Although there haven't been additional updates, fans took it to be a positive sign that Andrea was such a regular presence on her daughter's whirlwind Eras Tour. During her podcast appearance, Taylor noted that her father's procedure came as a shock because he had a 'perfect EKG' and 'healthy physicals' each year leading up to the surgery in July. Scott's health was revealed to be far more dire than he or his family realized when he had a resting stress test this year, which revealed 'five hard blockages in his heart.' Taylor said that now her father tells all his friends to get the same resting stress test, 'because that's what's actually preventative.' Taylor added that people who learn that they're suffering from blockages earlier may be able to have less invasive stents put in. By contrast, bypass surgery usually takes the form of open-heart surgery, an extremely invasive procedure in which the breast bone can be cut in order to spread the ribs apart to access the heart, according to the Mayo Clinic. The surgery is used to repair damage from coronary artery disease, in which the arteries in the heart become partially or completely blocked by plaques, which deprives the heart of oxygen and can lead to heart attacks. Medications are used to stop the heart temporarily while a machine helps blood and oxygen flow to the rest of the body during the operation. Healthy, unblocked blood vessels, usually taken from inside the chest or the lower leg, are then grafted to allow blood to bypass the blocked portions of arteries. Recovery from the procedure can take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks. The Reputation singer said doctors impressed the seriousness of the procedure on her father, telling him, 'we've got to do this, like, tomorrow.' According to Taylor, her dad's doctors were surprised that he was even able to walk in without showing any obvious distress considering the degree to which the arteries in his heart were blocked. As he prepared for the surgery on short notice, Scott told Taylor and her brother Austin that they didn't need to rush to be with him because they were busy with their own lives, even though she planned to drop everything to support him. 'He was being the brave dad, the strong dad, you know,' Travis added. Taylor recalled finding it ridiculous how much her father tried to downplay the seriousness of his condition. 'He said something about, like, "When a cat is injured it curls up around a tree and heals itself." 'I was like, "Dad, cats don't have quintuple bypass surgery. That's wild. You're just saying stuff now. That doesn't mean anything to me."' Taylor said she promised her father she wouldn't make a fuss and fly to be with him, but it was all a fib, and he woke up surrounded by her, her brother, their mother Andrea and his best friend. She recounted how Scott was loopy in his first 15 minutes awake and turned into a comedian, which impressed her, as she thought he was usually pretty funny even when he wasn't drugged up from anesthesia. The Eras Tour singer recalled how her family told him in shock that he had had a quintuple bypass, as they didn't know how many arteries were blocked before he went into surgery. Taylor did her best impression of her dad's groggy post-surgery response with a croaking voice: 'Well, you see, I come from a very competitive family.' Scott was apparently so out of it that he tried to give the doctors and nurses around him some of Taylor's guitar picks just after he woke up from surgery — a standard treat that he carries with him for fans — except that he wasn't wearing pants and didn't have any pockets in his surgical gown to hold the picks. In the early days of his recovery, she realized that the parent–child dynamic had flipped, and now she was one of her father's caregivers. She smiled as she recalled how her parents used to scold her for staying up late to talk to her friend Abigail on the phone when she should have been sleeping, but now her brother was begging her to take her father's phone because he had been FaceTiming his friends all night from his hospital bed instead of getting some much-needed sleep and rest 'That's, like, one of the main things you need,' Travis reiterated. Taylor recounted a comical scene in which she, Austin and their mother all refused to be the one to take his phone and possibly earn his ire. The Folklore singer added that it was 'surreal' that her father used to build her cribs and play sets, but now it was her turn to build 'his shower chair and his walker' and his adjustable bed. Because Scott couldn't initially walk on his own, Taylor said she essentially moved in with her father for the summer and had to get him a harness to 'walk' him. Travis then jumped in to say her father was 'full of life' and 'appreciative that he caught it.'
RNZ News
18-06-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
'It's very therapeutic for the people' - first full knee replacement surgery in Far North town
Erica Whyte and her surgeon Dr Rob Coup. Photo: Supplied / Health NZ A woman who has had the first full knee replacement surgery in the Far North town of Kaitaia says being able to have the operation in her own community - supported by whanau - was a "therapeutic" and "holistic" experience. Kaitaia Hospital has recently become the first rural hospital in Northland to have capacity for knee replacement surgery - years after hip joint replacement surgery first became available in Kaitaia in 2018. Health New Zealand (HNZ) said the achievement is a major step forward in expanding advanced surgical care closer to home for Far North residents. Surgeons travel to Kaitaia from Whangārei once every one to two weeks to do the operations. Seventy-year-old Coopers Beach local Erica Whyte, who had her left knee operated on in Whangārei in 2019, said the surgery on her right knee last month was a much more comfortable experience. "Being close to the hospital, being part of the big whanau community up in the far north, and going to a local hospital and having surgery there, it was totally different to driving down to Whangārei, anybody wanted to visit me was a four hour round-trip, Kaitaia was half an hour to come visit me," she said. "Just the ability to be able to be in your own community, to have medical treatment, it's just holistic and it's very therapeutic for the people," she added. Four weeks on from the operation, Whyte said she can now walk without aid and has a 100 percent bend in her knee. Whyte said she was stoked for locals, particularly those living on the Aupōuri Peninsula - who would have needed to travel three hours on a bumpy road to get to Whangārei for treatment. "When you're only a few days post surgery, it's a painful operation, it's not something you want to spend two or three hours sitting in a car on the way home, so for me to spend half an hour [being driven] home, was fantastic," she said. The Kaitaia theatre team with Dr Coup. Photo: Supplied / Health NZ Whyte, who has arthritis, said she first got onto the waiting list for knee replacement in 2018, and it was over a year's wait until she got her more severely affected left knee replaced in late 2019. She said the pain in her right knee was manageable for some years, until it deteriorated in the middle of last year when she became reliant on a walking pole, painkillers and anti-inflammatories. Whyte saw a doctor in July last year, but it was not until February this year that she got her first specialist appointment to discuss knee surgery options. She said she was initially told that it would take 10-15 months for her to get surgery done. But the opportunity to be selected as an ideal candidate for the first knee replacement surgery in Kaitaia brought her surgery forward by about a year. Whyte said she was told by the doctor that she was suitable for the operation in Kaitaia, as she had no co-morbidities like diabetes, which meant her operation was lower risk for an operation at Kaitaia Hospital where there was no back up ICU. HNZ general manager surgical services in Te Tai Tokerau Katy Wilkinson said the recruitment of three new orthopaedic surgeons to Northland in January has been key to making this complex procedure possible. "Having these three new orthopaedic surgeons is just a wonderful asset for our team, it's growing the future of our care across Northland, particularly in Kaitaia," she said. HNZ said the additional surgeons means an average of 160 more orthopaedic patients can be seen in a month, across a range of specialities, including diabetic foot clinics. Wilkinson said the surgeons usually stay for a couple of days when they visit Kaitaia - doing operations as well as attending to outpatient appointments. When asked how many knee surgeries can be done in Kaitaia in a year, Wilkinson said they're aiming to complete 12 to 24 operations yearly. She said the number will depend on the availability of the surgeons, how urgent the patients' case is, and how long they've been waiting for. Wilkinson said hundreds of people are on the wait list for knee surgery across Northland. Kaitaia Hospital has two operating theatres, eight day-surgery beds and three recovery beds. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
CBC
20-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Faster surgeries
A possible solution to cut the wait list for Canadians in need of hip and knee replacement surgeries
CBC
20-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
It's much faster to get hip or knee replacements if there's a central waitlist: study
Canadians who need a hip or knee replacement could get the surgery more quickly — without adding to health-care budgets or opening more operating rooms — if central waitlists were created, the author of a new study says. The findings, published in Tuesday's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, suggest it's significantly faster to add patients to a central list where they can see any surgeon in their area, compared to each surgeon having their own waitlists. Right now in Ontario, a primary care provider, such as your family doctor, refers you to a surgeon or physiotherapist to decide whether surgery is needed. If it is, you'll be put on one surgeon's waiting list, which could be long or short. Often, it's a long wait — in Canada, only two-thirds of patients receive their hip replacement within the 26-week recommended standard, according to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. For knee replacements, only 59 per cent are done within that time. So that's prompted some provinces to experiment with how they assign surgery patients to waitlists, with the goal of shortening overall wait times. For the study, Dr. David Urbach, head of the surgery department at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, and his team compared three models based on data collected from more than 17,000 patients across Ontario who were referred for hip or knee replacements in 2017. The three models were: Option 1: A family doctor refers you for assessment to a pool of surgeons or physiotherapists in the part of the province where you live. If you need surgery, you're assigned a surgeon and put on their waitlist. Option 2: The family doctor refers you to a specific surgeon or physiotherapist to decide whether surgery is needed. If you need an operation, then you're put in a pool for the next available surgeon in the part of the province where you live. Option 3: A combination of the first two: Your family doctor puts the request for assessment into a central pool — and, if you need surgery, you enter a second pool that includes all the qualified surgeons in your area and would see the next one available. Currently, patients awaiting joint replacements are like customers at a grocery store, Urbach said in an interview — they're stuck in a line, even if another checkout opens up. But the better option for surgery would be akin to going to the bank, where everybody moves through a common line and waits the shortest possible time. WATCH | Hospital replaces hips in 35 minutes: How a hospital is doing hip replacements in 35 minutes 1 year ago Duration 4:52 Toronto's Humber River Hospital has started using a new model to get more hip replacement patients through the operating room. CBC's Christine Birak breaks down how hyper-throughput surgeries work and why the hospital says it's the type of innovation provinces should invest in. When it comes to wait times, Urbach said the study found that random factors can crop up and slow down one surgeon — like one having an already long wait list and limited operating room time in a more rural area. Shorter waits with new system Priority for joint replacement surgery also depends on criteria like the degree of pain and disability and the risk of a worse outcome with a delay in surgery. In Ontario, the goal is for a patient to wait no longer than six months for a consultation, with the maximum wait for the surgery itself being another six months, the researchers said. For top priority cases, 90 days is the target wait time for those on a single surgeon's list, while the study found that comparable patients in the regional pool made it through in 84 days. In the study, Option 3 — where there was a central intake for consultation and for surgery — nearly halved wait times for the vast majority of patients in all regions, ranging from 111 fewer days in Toronto (from 257 to 146 days) to 281 days in Ontario West (from 536 to 255 days). Much of the wait time for joint replacements was for the surgery itself and not the consultation, the researchers found. "Unless you introduce a team-based model of care, you just have to wait until a spot opens up and that could be very long," Urbach said. "That could be a year, year-and-a-half or longer." Getting surgeons to buy in Canadians may have heard of team-based primary care, where patients have access to a well-connected interprofessional team such as family doctors, nurse practitioners, social workers and dietitians. Similarly, in team-based surgical care, a group of surgeons takes the next patient in order of priority, even if a patient's particular surgeon has a very long list, Urbach said. Asked what kind of reaction surgeons have given to team-based surgical care so far, Urbach said many are skeptical about moving away from keeping their own list of patients. "They're concerned that they'll lose their source of referrals," Urbach said. Dr. Olufemi Ayeni, president of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association and an orthopedic surgeon at McMaster, said he sees that view dissipating among those in the profession. "I think there will be some openness and there's definitely been a culture shift within orthopedics," Ayeni said. "We don't like hearing about patients who are suffering, needing pain medications. It feeds into other concerns [such as] opioid use." The study's authors acknowledged that unless surgeons believe that team-based models of care are beneficial to them and do not threaten their autonomy or opportunities for income and professional advancement, "these models of care are unlikely to be viable in Canadian health systems in which physicians are highly independent." Ayeni agreed, saying otherwise the response to team-based care among surgeons will be muted. Mohamed Alarakhia, a family physician and managing director of the non-profit eHealth Centre for Excellence in Kitchener, Ont., uses e-referrals for specialists. Alarakhia said it has already reduced orthopedic wait times by 54 days. Wait times across Canada Using a central intake for both assessment and surgeries equalizes wait times overall among surgeons, Alarakhia said. "We have examples in this province of where we've figured it out and across the country where they've done central intake," Alarakhia said, giving Quebec and Alberta as examples. "I believe we can solve these problems if we get some of these things in place." Health PEI said it's now adopting a centralized waitlist management system for surgical care, including hip and knee replacements.
